


Comfortable?

by coraxes



Series: Tumblr Femslash Prompts [2]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/F, Mass Effect 1, pre-shippy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-04
Updated: 2015-09-04
Packaged: 2018-05-05 20:47:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5389703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coraxes/pseuds/coraxes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tali’s tired, and for once, Shepard isn’t driving.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Comfortable?

“This is the most boring planet we’ve found so far,” Shepard declared. Garrus hummed agreement from the driver’s seat.  He’d insisted on driving this time, which Shepard thought was unfair; all she’d done last time they took the Mako planetside was get them stuck in a ravine for an hour.  It was an accident.  But Tali’d supported the change in drivers enthusiastically, and Shepard knew when she was outnumbered.

Besides, it was hard to say no to Tali.

Still, with Garrus driving, it was difficult for Shepard to keep her eyes open.  They were about an hour away from an anomaly they had detected from orbit, and there was nothing on this barren dustball of a planet interesting enough to keep Shepard awake.  Between tracking Saren and doing missions for Hackett, it had been weeks since Shepard had gotten more than five hours of sleep in a row.

Shepard shook her head like she could knock the sleepiness loose.  The Mako’s seats had never seemed so comfortable.

Beside Shepard, Tali was slumping in her seat.  Her shoulders curved forward and she leaned to the side, almost hitting Shepard, then jerked upright.  

Shepard grinned.  Even though she couldn’t see Tali’s face, some things were universal.  “You sleepy too, Tali?”

Tali groaned.  “Is it that obvious?  The ship’s too quiet.  I don’t think I’ve had a good night’s sleep since I got on board.”

“It’s too  _quiet_ to sleep?” Garrus asked.

Shepard laughed.  “Hell, yeah. The first few nights I bunked here, I had to remind myself that the engines hadn’t failed.”  Shepard had grown up on ships and stations, wherever her mother and grandmother took her; there was always  _something_ humming in the background.  On the Normandy, there was only silence.  After her third sleepless night, she’d had the ship’s VI start playing white noise in her cabin.

Tali nodded.  “Exactly!” The sentence was punctuated with a huge yawn, and Shepard stifled another laugh.

“Go ahead and sleep, Tal.  We’ve still got a while to go,” she said.  They hadn’t detected any geth on the planet, and it was one of the few where Thresher Maws had yet to make an appearance; might as well make use of the downtime, Shepard thought.  “I’m gonna get some shut-eye, too.  Garrus, wake us up if you see something.”

“Aye, aye, Commander,” Garrus said, eyes still trained on the windshield. “I’ll try not to drive us off a cliff.”

“Laugh it up, Vakarian,” Shepard said, rolling her eyes.  Jesus, that had only been  _once._

Tali relaxed against the seat; after a few minutes, she slumped sideways, bumped her helmet against Shepard’s shoulder, and immediately straightened again. “Oh!  Sorry.”

Shepard considered for a moment, then looped an arm around Tali’s shoulders. It was simple to pull Tali over to rest on her shoulder, although Tali felt sturdier than Shepard expected.  Perhaps because of the fragility of their immune systems, Shepard had always thought of quarians as soft, but Tali was a solid weight against her armor.  “Might as well get comfortable,” Shepard explained when Tali stiffened.

“If you say it’s alright,” Tali squeaked.  Some of the tension left her shoulders.  She squirmed into a more comfortable position, helmet clicking against Shepard’s armor.  One of her arms wrapped around Shepard’s waist, tentatively at first, then relaxing when Shepard didn’t protest.  Finally, she went still.

“Comfortable?”

“Very.”  Tali’s accent was stronger, slurring the word.  

Shepard let her helmet rest on Tali’s and closed her eyes.  She could feel Tali’s shoulders rise and fall in a soothing rhythm.  

“You let all your crew members get that comfortable, commander?” Garrus asked in a low voice after Tali was asleep.

Half-asleep, Shepard answered, “Just the cute ones.”


End file.
